My Amazon purchase: SOMEBODY! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

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For the next little while, you will intermittently be hearing about my fascination with author Stant Litore’s  Zombie Bible Series.  And for a minute here, you’re going to hear about it again, although, not exactly the way I had intended to do this.

That book laying there already has the hallmark visual prescience that says “something horrible most likely happens in there.”  True enough. I think.

I say I think, because I cannot open it.

After having read the first installment, Death Has Come Up Into Our Windows on my iPad Kindle program, I was hooked.  But the first book is not very long, and my well-documented cerebral struggles with going the litertary long-haul on the backlit screen was barely invoked with such wonderfully-brief sendoff into the series. [DISCLAIMER: before anyone in my life thinks I’ve taken a sudden fascination with lacing green smoothies with a Sardonia root, let me just explain: the story involves the prophet Jeremiah. The enemies of Israel are the undead. Transpose the main structural themes with that, and you have at least an idea where it’s going.  But understand this: Jeremiah’s positions are neither truncated nor perverted for the sake of the story–even though some artistic license is still there.]

So about that book up there.  I had already purchased it on my Kindle app once, and when I tried to venture that road, wound up vapor-locking a chapter in.  All I know this far is this: Caius is engaged in a rather tumultuous autopsy, and that”s as far as I got.

I’ve realized–I need tactile books–or at any rate, E-ink, if I’m going to be able to read.

So, going to Amazon to buy it again at a whopping .74 cents did not make me feel guilty.  It was a used copy, listed as “VERY GOOD” in the “conditions” rendering.

This was not the case.  What I received was a decomposed, rotting, malodorous ex-book.  Horrid smells emanating from the pages, dubious dark-statins remniscent of blood, blatant dirt-clod remnants on the cover (visible if you click on that picture), with an unwieldy feel–almost like some acetone-based rigor mortis.  There is also a putrid bouquet of cigarette smoke which comes off on my fingers.

So in effect, I was mailed a Zombie, by the non-circumspect quality control department of the Amazon affiliate (literary corpse division).

I wrote them back and told them of this mild discrepancy.  They wrote back, completely apologetic and refunded my money this morning.

But why . . . why do I have this odd feeling . . . that when they wrote me and said “no need to send it back to us”  . . . that . . . well . . .

Never mind.  I’ll read it when I know it’s dead. For real. 

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Concerning the reverse-psychology of homeliness

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

IMG_5297A few years ago, I started messing around with buying dime-store reading glasses.  I did this mainly because my eyes would intermittently have moments of focal-challenges.  But 95 % of the time, I didn’t really need them.

A few years later, and I’ve gone from “keeping a pair on hand” to “keeping a pair tucked away at every possible junction in my life.”  Still—only needing cheapo glasses, as the odd ebbs and flows of my ocular degradations are relatively minor.

But I am now to a point where, I could technically read a magazine with standard font without them (currently, I use a base-level 1.00x power set.), and get by, but I notice a sort of instant fatigue that sets in, that is immediately alleviated by using them.  So to them I now go without reservation.  But the adjustment period took a while—mainly because when you haven’t been seen, associated, or cast in anyone’s mindset as the avatar for corrective lenses, you have the sudden rhetorical rush of people that HAVE TO WEIGH IN about the way they do—or do not—fit your face.

Primarily, people feel the need to reassure me that I “look good in glasses.”  This is of course, preposterous, but I understand the need for the “fulfillment of social contracts,” “general human diplomacy,” and another term far removed from the lexicon of human interaction when referring to the appearance of others to their faces: Lies.

Like me, If you’ve started about with a base currency of ugly, no micrometers, T-squares, calibrations, tweaks, adjustments or articulated, watchmaker-level attention to detail on the frames of a set of spectacles is going to reverse that.

This is why I’ve decided to deliberately buy the worst-possible-looking glasses on the planet, and wear them.  Because I understand the nature of compensatory cognition—a term I just now made up, but I will explain nonetheless.  I don’t care what you call it, but I know it exists.

In the same fashion an on-deck batter swings two bats before taking to home base, wearing the most preposterously-horrid set of magnifiers will hopefully impute a false-sense of George Clooney to my visage when I remove them; the reference point is skewed, and thus are my handsomeness ratios.

If I can find a set of bilateral monocles that literally cry out “birth-control,” I will in retrograde be the beneficiary of an aesthetic VAT tax on Brad Pitt’s marketability in any more film adaptations of Homer’s works..  This will fade quickly, just like that little spiral illusion you stare at on Facebook—the one that causes the wall next to you to appear to be gesticulating.

I don’t really mind the idea that I have issued a decree of relativist reduction of the wholesale ruggedness of Orlando Bloom, simply because I’ve decided that the leopard-print set of teardrop readers hanging in the discount aisle will make me look like a genetically-modified Simon Chipmunk while I try to read Flannery O’Connor on my Nook.

This, of course, begs questions.

1)      But what about the ability to make the font bigger on your Nook?

Yeah . . . no.  As I said, the initial issue with glasses is, everyone feels the need to opine about them. So for now, I’m going use my fellow man’s inability to accurately reference anything to launch an indirect, confiscatory assault on Liam Hemsworth’s flawless facial landscape—and transfer it into my aesthetic bank account.

2)      What about getting prescription glasses that can look exactly like you want them.

This has many problems.  The first of them being that I have something called a “dashboard.”  The second of them being ‘the need to make forcible, left-turns.” And the third is something known as “open passenger window.”

I’m not really going to pay an exorbitant amount of money for glasses that will contribute no greater good to my vision than the cheapos I buy in bulk.  I don’t need people to think I’m trying to alter their perceptive arcs. I need my Ugly Duckling Theorem to be secret—if it’s going to be successful.

3)      What about contact lenses?

No. No, and NO. Did Adam and Eve wear transparent fig leaves?  That’s what I thought.  And for the exact same reasons.

 

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Mr. Big’s Eric Martin weighs in (sort of) on the creative process.

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

ericMI know two things about Eric Martin.  One is, he is the singer/front man/vocal wonder that came into my consciousness with the advent of their eponymous record in the late eighties. Having been a musician/singer nearly all my life, I had managed to miss all of his San Francisco Bay Area musical catalogue until this band came along.  It took  a couple of other musicians–a one Billy Sheehan and a one Paul Gilbert–both of who occupied my immediate pursuits in bettering my guitar chops–to drag me along as a listener.

And I’m glad they did. When I first heard the song Had Enough, I knew this man would forever become a part of the vocal mosaic in my own life. A series of very fortunate events would allow me the chance tMr_Big_Self-Titledo play with him–twice.

The other thing I know is, Eric seems to delight in answering my texts and emails.  Such is why I write him and asked him if he’d consent to an “E Interview” about the writing process.  I figured the man who wrote the stunningly successful To be With You might have all kinds of marshal arts katas, mumblings, meditations and dietary run-ups to the creative process.

Nonsense.  As seems to be a consistent theme with many of my heroes, this idea of the “random chance” muse showing up on the creative campground without any firewood is starting to become a trend.  Plus, he wasn’t having any of this “extensive examination of methods” from me.  Not when he apparently is going to claim there is no creative El Dorado to examine.  And Especially extensively.

So in effect, after letting me know I am apparently the only sentient being in his life that calibrates my correspondence to his itinerary (I know nothing), he manages to say something on the subject–all while saying he has little to say on the subject.

Rock stars . . .

First, because I actually have a horrible reputation for mentally-rolodexing even the more notable parts of my day/schedule, I must include–Eric’s passive redemption of my organizational reputation–even though it’s completely accidental:

Owed to G,

You always catch me in between gig’s don’t ya? Your’e the only one I know who actually know’s where I am and where I’m not. All my family and close friends call me or text me at 4 in morning when I’m in the Ukraine or just going to sleep in India . . . But not you RG. You pay attention.

Also, the calculatingly-clever “Owed” vs. “Ode” most likely hails back to this ridiculous and completely labor-intensive attack of banality on his hit song last year–not to mention my all-too-convenient comparison of him to BBC Sherlock thespian, Benedict Cumberbatch.

I did manage to simply ask him the general overview of the creative/writing/vocal processes that have set him so well, and has made his name synonymous with soulful/bluesy and melodically-based vocals.  Thus:

Eric:

Well let’s see here… There are reasons why I don’t teach classes on songwriting or have the patience to give vocal lessons…I’m just not good at it. For me to just give you the break down on song process would be boring. It changes all the time; Title, melody, riff, verse,bridge, chorus, wing, prayer. I have to be inspired I can’t just sit there with my guitar and say “OK rock star, lets make some magic.” Although my best stuff comes out under duress … Bad relationships, heartbreak, loss, loneliness or when I have a deadline. Every Mr. Big record was written with my back against the wall, Bad times equals good times..ha.

The vocal lesson thing is a totally different animal, I’m always searching for new methods , exercises, sore throat remedies and voodoo spells, it’s never ending. 

E

Eric used to maintain a blog on his forum years ago.  He’s actually quite an animated writer, who writes exactly like he talks.  And he’s actually said more here than meets the eye (or. . . um, ear) if you truly thing about each little phrase, and chances are, if you’re reading this as a creative person yourself, you’ll take a certain validation for your own talents from it. Or some of it may seem very familiar with the idea that the true blues songs were written under the yoke of oppression.

And since another hero of mine , Glenn Kaiser postulates to my agreement that the majority of the Psalms written by David are forged in exactly this crucible, it makes sense. Even if I happen to believe that there was far  more metaphysical reason for the psalms than say, Just Take My heart.

As these little”interviews” go along on this blog–some of them far more extensive than the friendly and slightly tongue-in-cheek response Eric gave me here, this Laissez-faire and free-market creative theme will most likely become the rule, as opposed to the exception.  Which is a core charactersic in creation:  stuff just manages to show up sometimes in shallow waters.  But its origin can be quite deep.

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Tuesday’s fodder and ennui

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

IMG_4986This week has been a torrential mish-mash of duties, work, caseloads and other bland-to-the-taste side orders of chronological revulsion.

That also happens to be a convoluted, fibrous goiter of an excuse to explain why I’ve written almost nothing of consequence the last couple days. With the exception of my contemplating a name change for the blog.  It seems most of you tend to like it.  Maybe I’ll just stick with the good idea fairy for now.

Tomorrow, Mr. Big’s Eric Martin weighs in on the creative process for me.  Or . . . at least that’s sort of what he did.  He told me he didn’t have an answer, then provided very brief examples that essentially did answer my questions in a short paragraph.

Also, I’ve been scouring Amazon.com for odd books.  How an independent bookseller charges $3000.00 for a book I can get for 30?  Wow. I’m wondering if their little acetone-addled, book-wormy IT uploaders went into delirium tremens when trying to sell the surplus of National Geographics in the public market.

Lastly. I’m finally starting a novel.  As Bethany, the gracious and talented artist/bookseller who sold me a book today said, “it’s not going to get done unless you do it.”

And she is right.  As I told her, “That’s my wife’s philosophy, too.”

I guess that means they are both right.

So there you are.  Tomorrow.

-R

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Thoughts on changing the name of this blog

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Ron Giesecke
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Chuck Waders. yet ANOTHER pseudo-incarnation in the world my own creative schizophrenia

I know this is going to come off with the same ridiculous ring of any other “first-world” lament reverberation, but I am now convinced that it is possible to be too diverse; in short, it’s great to have a myriad of talents, but there is a certain kind of artistic schizophrenia that comes with them.

At least in my case.  Depending on what room I walk into, I can be contexted, pigeonholed, rendered, slotted, painted, dubbed, christened, and categorized in a moment’s notice. To some, I a musician, but even with that comes a bunch of subheadings: singer, guitarist, harmonica player, writer, bass player, spoons . . . and even a few things I don’t play a lot, but make it work.  I went to a Kish Moody concert the other night, thinking of myself contextually as a guitar player with a night off.  Instead, I wound up on the drums. On my birthday.

Oh. Also, the Ukulele has managed to forge its own identifying markers as well.

Then there are the factions that are completely fascinated with the mechanical facility I’ve cultivated with playing cards. Granted, if I truly wanted to cheat at poker at mid-level games, I could.  But I hate card games. I just happen to like card tricks, and have also managed to foment a notion that I could slip into a blackjack game and annihilate the house. Of course, the notion of using the pasteboards in a  simulacrum Samson pulls down the Philistine house of cards”  thing has the romanticized echoes Robin Hood. Doing it to the individual? Not so much.

Anyway, then there are some that have this notion that, because I happen the love fly-fishing, have a zen-like relationship with the water; that I know everything there is to know about the temperament of trout.  Not true, but passion goes a long way. Thus, to some, I am the haggard guy at the river, flinging line and caterwauling about caddis flies.

Pretty much, if I’m relatively good at something–or at any rate interested in something, I’m going to write about the subjects and involve them at a level that I hope translates.

Thus, my concern for this title, Master of None.  While I think it’s a nice summation of my hodgepodge talent quilt, I also think it’s too “inward” pointing.  It’s no mystery that I’m the principal writer for this blog, but I was thinking that possibly the title could be changed to reflect something that focuses on the conceptual side of what this blog is: diverse.  The blog is somewhat frustrating for a few, because one minute I’m on about Tenkara fishing, and the next I’m making a thoughtful overview of Stephen Hawking’s recent pronouncements .  Right after that, I’m messing with baristas, book-mavens or lake hounds.

Or, I’m planking in the middle of Wal-Mart.  Make no mistake; trolling is a talent. But at the bottom if it all, it becomes obvious: I am weaving all over the road.

So the expectations here can sometimes cause a bit of grief.  A few people I know prefer it when I write about music.  A few more wish I’d keep posting card tricks.

A bunch of you want me to explore the Grand Apologetic–thus make my own strategic arguments that contend for a God in our design, purpose, and destiny. And trust me, that book is coming. So is a ridiculous novel, of which I have just presented the structural outline to the person whom I want to write the foreword.

But a name.  Where to go with a name that reflects the nature of this blog’s direction?  No idea.  Should I change it at all?  Again.  Not a clue.

Maybe I’m messing with scratching a useless itch. Maybe the blog’s title is perfect.

Or, maybe it’s sitting right there within reach.

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On Nihilism

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

Viktor_Frankl2“If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of heredity and environment. If we do that we will feed the nihilism which modern man is in any case prone. I became acquainted with the last stage of corruption at my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the of heredity and environment, or as the Nazis liked to say ‘of blood and soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry of defense or other in Berlin but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”

–Vickor Frankl

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On another year

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

First off, I spent my last night at 47 doing this:

This includes me ripping away at the margis of the Pentetonic scale on my new, Tech 21, Richie Kotzen OMG pedal.

Anyway. I had mentioned in a previous post that my birthday would bring about the same age my dad was when he found out I would be coming into the world—to wit: the first born.  For me, becoming 48 has more weight to it than the supposed harbinger of black balloons, casket-ridden birthday cards, and feeble attempts by my friends to imply that I am but months away from soiling the bed in some involuntary, nocturnal deluge when 50 finally does come along.

I say this because it is the very last number on my experiential radar with any reference.  My dad, despite becoming a father relatively late (although still, somewhat young in terms of the Tony Randall/Larry King sliding scale of reproductive boony-bouncing), managed to live until 86 years of age—giving me a plenteous 38 years with him before I had to say goodbye.

But up until this point, all these referential places have had a sense of comfort; or a sense of benchmarks that left “places still to reach” on the game board.

It’s managed to feel like the Splash Mountain ride from Disneyland.  You are pulled along on a comforting track—it feels like you’re  floating along, but there are subtle reminders when you turn the corner; you feel the track mechanisms  pull the log ride into an orientation that tells you that the “ride” is referentially similar to the one ahead of you.

But then, there is the point where the water deepens, and the ride seems to assume a slightly different identity; you can feel the guiding track underneath dissipate into deep water, and your car is now floating with its own set of gradations.  Maybe you bump into the side at one point. The car ahead of you— another.  But no matter what, you “know” that the feeling of floating forward is bringing you ever-closer to the “drop off.” I now feel like I’m floating free of any real reference.

I know. It’s odd. And, I’ll leave the interpretation of “drop off” to you.  

So yeah. I guess I have other reference points: My dad’s retirement age. The age he had open-heart surgery, etc.  But none of those seem to have this benchmark for me.  I can only speculate why.  And apparently, I can only speculate into more assumptions with no real way to bolt it down.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting old.  The answer is probably right there.  I just can’t see it without my 1x, Dollar Tree glasses.

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I’m re-writing my local grocer’s policy manual

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

IMG_5187This is my local grocery store. It’s called Safeway. If you live near me, you know what it is. If not, it’s probably foreign to you. It doesn’t matter. They sell stuff, and I go and buy it. That’s all that matters for the sake of today’s lecture in Giesecke 101.

But they also sell things that people want, but, somehow, decide to not buy it. Yet, for some quirky reason–they make a deliberative effort to carry it out the front door, nonetheless.

Yes, that’s right. There is an entire population of people out there for whom getting tanked-up on Vodka is part of some hierarchical needs pyramid Abraham Maslow apparently designed when he was dropping mushrooms.

That said, lets get all Apocalypse Now on the general store, shall we?

This—Is a film composite I made to illustrate that my local grocery place is slowly turning into Sierra Leone. Or, depending on who you talk to–Rio De Janeiro. I shot the footage with an iPhone 5, and then made it look like a Blackhawk helicopter was performing some kind of drill. It looks real. It is not.

At least yet.

Sad thing is, we’re about two more gunshots and a stabbing away from the entire place being declared a War zone by Governor Brown. And I for one have a solution. It’s a one-part piece of internal, corporate legislation that would pass the House and Senate, if it was that kind of process. This pre-emptive bill comes only after many, many hours of deliberative contemplation, and attention to the local cultural morays, factoring in divergent economic strata–all the while not losing sight of the “human element.” And this policy is:

1) Lock up the booze

And here is the reason I say that:

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Secondarily, I’m of the opinion that someone over there at the store has been fed some kind of malignant focus group data that says that restricted access to disposable razor cartridges is the only thing standing between civilized society and a Manchurian bloodletting. Because it nearly requires a TSA proctologic run-up for simply asking my grocer to “unlock my desire for a closer shave.” See this:

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Those aren’t even the cartridges. Those are vouchers that drop out when I crank the little handle. I have to take them to the pharmacist and have him condescend to sell me the blades—right then and there. Meanwhile, Captain Jack Sparrow is cuddled up with the Chivas Regal, caterwauling about the dearth of rum and jamming the Ouzo into a special pant leg compartment sewn into his pants–and nobody cares.

When Scott Adams wrote The Dilbert Principle, where one of the underlying subtexts was that those at the administrative levels will sit in a room—on a committee—and formulate the WORST POSSIBLE solution to a problem, he was tapping into a veritable mother lode of correctness. This has to be the case. There simply is no other possible explanation for the following continuum, short of a cerebral blood-clot:

PROBLEM: Loss prevention consists of alcohol theft, and most altercations with perpetrators involve physical resistance over the theft of alcohol

SOLUTION: Put alcohol in an isolated, unobservable place, to which disheveled individuals gravitate towards “for no apparent reason.”

SECONDARY SOLUTION: Lock up the Gillette, Mach 3’s, in case anyone wanting to ameliorate a 5 O’clock shadow is casing the joint.

Clearly, these people have not sat in the white-hot revelatory presence of the Lean 6 Sigma red-belts. So until then, I’m going in there and re-writing that policy manual.

Plus, I’m out of razors.

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WordPress

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

so, I attempted to write a blog post last night… Which I did. But, I saved it into my draft mode and thought “I’ll just post this thing when I go on a break at work”

Yeah… Well the best laid plans as they say… I lost all my formatting and any attempt to try to reformat this thing on an iPhone six in a parking lot well on your break is… Shall we say, laborious.

So now it’s going to have to wait until later in the day… Sorry about that for those of you that like to show up here 🙂

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Barnes & Noble: perpetual canvas

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Ron Giesecke

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It occurred to me.

I like walking around places like the bookstore. I like messing with people.  I like taking pictures of stuff.

Trifecta, people.  I’ve found a regular feature.

I’m thinking, once a week, I’m going to waft into my Barnes & Noble and do stuff.

And by “do stuff, ” I do not mean to imply some circa-1970’s reference to copious cocaine expenses out of the corporate petty-cash fund.

I mean “perform some kind of experiment.”  Maybe talk to a few people.  Ask them a question and take a microcosmic, cultural core-temp.  Maybe I will plank in the middle of the floor. Maybe I will walk around and photograph books.

Maybe I will walk up to people and beg them to help me reach President Kennedy, and “advise him against going to Dallas” right near the “Paranormal” book section.

By the way, a lady watched me take a picture of that Satanic Bible.  I looked at her and said, “They grow up so fast.”

Anyway. Barnes & Noble will become part of this blog’s mosaic.  I’m going to use it as my own personal canvas. Maybe I will perform freudian subterfuges, Pavlovlian ruses, utilizing Euclidian precision with an almost obscene amount of Sophoclean dramatic flourish.

Or, I might just be weird.

Occasionally,I might even broach a serious subject.

NO–not politics.  Well, I will at least try to keep politics out of it.  But you never know when someone there’s going to hit you across the face pachouli-laced,essential oils molotov cocktail for asking too many questions.

 

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